The Red and Blue Chair is a chair designed in 1917 by Gerrit Rietveld. It represents one of the first explorations by the De Stijl art movement in three dimensions. It was not painted its distinct colors until the early 1920s. Multiple versions of the chair exist and are housed in various collections.
History
The Red and Blue Chair is a chair designed in 1917 by Gerrit Rietveld. It represents one of the first explorations by the De Stijl art movement in three dimensions. It features several Rietveld joints.
The original chair was constructed of unstained beech wood and was not painted red, blue, yellow, and black until around 1923.[1][2] Fellow member of De Stijl and architect, Bart van der Leck, saw his original model and suggested that he add bright colours.[3] He built the new model of thinner wood and painted it entirely black with areas of primary colors attributed to De Stijl movement. The effect of this color scheme made the chair seem to almost disappear against the black walls and floor of the Rietveld Schröder House, where it was later placed.[1] The areas of color appeared to float, giving it an almost transparent structure.[4]
A version of the chair was sold by Christies in 2011 for €10,625.[5]
Construction
The chair embodies one of the principles of machine aesthetic, the erasing of distinctions between the load and support through a set of interlocking elements: the (red) back plays the role of the load (supported by a crossbar underneath the seat) and provides support for the arms at the same time.[6]
In Rietveld's instructions on how to build the chair, he informs the craftsperson to print the following verse from Der Aesthet by Christian Morgenstern and attach it under the seat:
Wenn Ich sitze, möchte Ich nicht
sitzen, wie Mein Sitzfleisch möchte
sondern wie Mein Sitzgeist sich,
säße er, den Stuhl sich flöchte.[7]
When I sit, I do not want
to sit like my seat-flesh likes
but rather like my seat-mind would,
if he were sitting, weave the chair for himself.
Rietveld did not maintain an authoritative specification of the measurements or colours and there are various versions of the chair.[8]
The Red and Blue Chair was on loan[citation needed] to the Delft University of Technology Faculty of Architecture as part of an exhibition when a fire destroyed the entire building in May 2008. The Red and Blue Chair was saved by firefighters.[12]
^ abVictoria and Albert Museum. Modern Chairs, 1918–1970: an international exhibition presented by the Whitechapel Art Gallery in association with the Observer, arranged by the Circulation Department, Victoria and Albert Museum, 22 July–30 August 1970 (London: Whitechapel Gallery, 1970), 8.
^Klaus-Jürgen Sembach, Twentieth Century Furniture Design (Köln : Taschen, c2002), 92. Victoria and Albert Museum. Modern Chairs, 1918–1970: an international exhibition presented by the Whitechapel Art Gallery in association with the Observer, arranged by the Circulation Department, Victoria and Albert Museum, 22 July–30 August 1970 (London: Whitechapel Gallery, 1970), 8.
